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uponit7771

(90,348 posts)
Mon Feb 6, 2017, 11:47 AM Feb 2017

QUESTION: If Brady was non white would he have asterisks by his name because of deflategate?

QUESTION: If Brady was non white would he have asterisks by his name because of playing with deflated footballs?

I believe so

Deflated footballs gives the offense of any team an empirical advantage on turn over and catch ratio.

Without a deflated football there are more fumbles, something that happened to Patriots during the SB this time, and less catches... something else that we saw during this SB.

I've seen the way Bonds, Owens and other athletes of color being treated 10 times worse by the "liberal media" with less evidence of cheating than Brady who was given a four game suspension for IMPROPER actions taken during the "deflategate" investigation process.

I think we should call out this open and overt disparate treatment by US media often.

Your take?

P.S. No, I'm not a patriots fan... I dropped them from the list after deflate-gate ... which was the 2nd or 3rd time that team has been caught cheating during the Bilicheck (sp) error.

12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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DemocratSinceBirth

(99,710 posts)
1. That is an interesting question
Mon Feb 6, 2017, 11:52 AM
Feb 2017

That is an interesting question but I have to recuse myself because I can not discuss Belichick, Brady, and Kraft objectively because of their affinity for or nexus to Drumpf.

rogue emissary

(3,148 posts)
2. Well I'm biased against Brady.
Mon Feb 6, 2017, 12:32 PM
Feb 2017

Ever since '15 when he snubbed Pres. Obama. I've hated Brady and the Patriots.

Now to your question, the organization that oversee youth baseball. They punished that black baseball team for the parents cheating. I think they nullified their season.

So the NFL should have taken their rings and trophy. I think they're lucky to get a asterisk.

uponit7771

(90,348 posts)
3. Right, I remember that team... It was mostly black too. I didn't know TB snubbed Obama
Mon Feb 6, 2017, 12:40 PM
Feb 2017

...Sounds like he's a winger.

Jake Stern

(3,145 posts)
4. Fact is every president from at least Reagan has had athletes snub their invites
Mon Feb 6, 2017, 12:56 PM
Feb 2017

so that isn't a big issue to me.

It was the cheating that killed any good impression of them.

 

Jim Lane

(11,175 posts)
5. The most famous sports asterisk belongs to Roger Maris, who was white.
Mon Feb 6, 2017, 08:05 PM
Feb 2017

As for Bonds and his use of performance-enhancing drugs, his case is similar to that of Mark McGwire, who is white. Both of them had outstanding statistics but neither has been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Of the two, Bonds had better statistics, but he also had the additional "distinction" of having been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the investigation of steroids. (The jury deadlocked on perjury but convicted him of obstruction of justice. On appeal, his conviction was initially upheld, but then overturned after a rehearing en banc.) Does keeping him out of the Hall of Fame mean that he's being treated worse than McGwire? With so few cases to consider, there are so many individual factors that it's hard to say whether racism is a cause.

As for how the media treated Brady, there was widespread reporting of what turned out to be a totally false charge, namely that 11 of 12 footballs tested in one game were underinflated. The NFL, clearly biased against Brady, was happy to let that lie propagate.

Did deflated footballs give the Patriots an advantage comparable to that gained by players like Bonds and McGwire over their careers? In the one game at issue (Patriots versus Colts, January 18, 2015), there was one Patriots ball that was found underinflated. The Patriots outscored the Colts by 17-7 in the first half. After halftime testing of balls by the referees, with the Patriots using balls of approved pressure, they outscored the Colts by 28-0 in the second half. Compare that with enormous advantage that Bonds gained by using steroids over a period of years. Sorry, but I can't see the media treatment of Brady as being unduly favorable.

uponit7771

(90,348 posts)
6. Wells report said Brady knew or was involved in cheating , Bonds was not
Tue Feb 7, 2017, 02:31 PM
Feb 2017

... Convicted of anything.

Brady was

And yes.... Deflated balls do give an empirical factual advantage

 

Jim Lane

(11,175 posts)
7. Multiple holes in the "racism" explanation
Tue Feb 7, 2017, 05:12 PM
Feb 2017

First, and most obviously, the NFL suspended Brady for four games, and he served that suspension. Did MLB ever take any action against Bonds? None I'm aware of. Last season he was the hitting coach for the Miami Marlins, and thus is obviously still able to work in baseball even after his retirement.

So the white guy was punished and the black guy was not.

Second, as to Brady, you certainly can't take the Wells Report as established fact. The NFL's selection of Wells to do the investigation was immediately denounced as unfair because he had previously worked for the NFL, which was perceived by many as being biased. After he issued his report, serious flaws were pointed out. One example is the analysis by a professor at MIT (yes, that's in the Boston area, but still). He examined the report's "findings" in terms of the established scientific principles and stated, "If I had to stake my reputation and my career on it, the Patriots balls match the Ideal Gas Law prediction, and I don't know why people can't get that." (The oversimplified version is that the balls were at the proper pressure when measured in the nice warm clubhouse, but the pressure dropped when the balls spent time in the cold. Remember that the game was played in New England in mid-January.)

Third, as to what the two players did: Even if you take the Wells Report as gospel truth, its conclusion as to Brady was that "it is more probable than not that Tom Brady was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities of {two Patriots employees} involving the release of air from Patriots game balls {in the game against the Colts}." Even by Wells, the most he could say about Brady in the Colts game was the hedging "at least generally aware" language, and there was no finding of any impropriety in any other game. Bonds, by contrast, was using banned performance-enhancing drugs for the last several years of his playing career, and admitted to it, but alleged that his trainer had given him the drugs and had told him they were other (permitted) substances.

Furthermore, it's not exactly the case that Bonds "was not convicted of anything." The government wanted to nail BALCO Labs and Bonds's trainer, among other targets. To that end, Bonds was granted immunity so that he could be compelled to testify against them before the grand jury without taking the Fifth. He was then convicted of obstruction of justice for not testifying fully and honestly. The legal issue over which judges divided was whether his "rambling, non-responsive answer to a simple question" was enough to constitute obstruction of justice under the terms of the applicable criminal statute. The majority said that it was not, so his conviction was overturned. Whether or not his conduct on the stand was criminal, it was certainly wrongful, but of course he was never punished for that, either.

Finally, as to the "empirical factual advantage" of deflated balls, even the Wells Report admitted "that Brady's performance in the second half of the AFC Championship Game—after the Patriots game balls were re-inflated—improved as compared to his performance in the first half." There's certainly no question about the "empirical factual advantage" of using banned performance-enhancing drugs over a period of several years.

uponit7771

(90,348 posts)
8. Was Bonds Convicted of anything? From any body or commission? tia
Tue Feb 7, 2017, 10:50 PM
Feb 2017

Brady cheated... It wasn't just that game either... Looking at the turn over stats from the patriots being out of this works for any NFL team... They were deflating balls for a while.

Bonds was never found to be cheating on anything afaik

 

Jim Lane

(11,175 posts)
9. Yes, Bonds was indicted by a grand jury and convicted at trial! And Brady was NOT!
Wed Feb 8, 2017, 01:53 AM
Feb 2017

Bonds admitted that, for several years, he was using PEDs. His defense was that he didn't know what drugs his trainer was giving him.

Was he cheating? The case for Yes is that he violated MLB's rules in a way that gave him a huge advantage (pun intended -- you can see from the photos how he bulked up). The case for No is that the word "cheating" implies deliberate action and that poor Barry was, as he contended, just an innocent dupe.

As for Brady, you started out by invoking the Wells Report, but now you've moved on to what I guess is the Uponit7771 Report, in which you conclude, as the NFL did not, that the Patriots were deflating balls for a while and that Brady, unlike Bonds, was fully aware of the facts.

But let's remember the context of all this. You initially asserted that Brady was treated more favorably because he's white. But Brady was punished and Bonds wasn't. That fact destroys your thesis.

Consider two other white athletes -- Mark McGwire (baseball) and Lance Armstrong (cycling). They both (eventually) admitted to using PEDs. McGwire was not punished but Armstrong was. I don't think the pattern is that whites get preferential treatment. The pattern, instead, is that MLB has a bad record at dealing with this problem, whether it's a white player or a black player.

uponit7771

(90,348 posts)
10. Bonds conviction was overturned... Your whole argument falls apart after that (link)
Wed Feb 8, 2017, 11:32 AM
Feb 2017
https://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-barry-bonds-conviction-overturned-20150422-story,amp.html?client=ms-android-verizon

Brady cheated knowingly... I don't give him benefit of the doubt after the other two phones and texts about the balls

Bonds..... not...

Brady treated more favorably..... He's white... Period
 

Jim Lane

(11,175 posts)
11. LOL, you obviously aren't interested in the facts
Wed Feb 8, 2017, 03:26 PM
Feb 2017

You triumphantly refer to (part of) the appellate history of Bonds's case as if it's some new dynamite fact that destroys my argument.

If you had actually been considering the issue with an open mind, which would include reading my responses, you would have seen that my very first post in this thread (#5) included that fact. It appears that all my research on the subject has been wasted on you. You've made up your mind.

You just keep on asserting that Brady (whom the NFL suspended for four games) was treated more favorably than Bonds (whom MLB never suspended, banned, fined, or disciplined in any way for his use of PEDs).

The biggest problem with a bogus contention like this is that it undermines the struggles of people who actually are discriminated against. Poor beleaguered Barry Bonds, who became a multimillionaire by breaking the rules and getting away with it, is not the best poster child for the cause of civil rights.

You may now have the last word in this subthread. Unless someone else chimes in, I'm outta here.

uponit7771

(90,348 posts)
12. What's wasted is the focus of the OP...Was Black athletes treated different than
Wed Feb 8, 2017, 03:58 PM
Feb 2017

..white athletes who were accused of cheating or who was controversial?

Yes...

Including Bonds

Pure human bias would lean to sense such conclusion no?

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